Top 25 Projections

As irritating as it is, I was not able to include pre-exposure in the numbers to come. In the end, Dialidol and WNTS scores have better statistical significance, and if I have to choose two variables, those are them. Funky things start to happen if you try to overfit. Perhaps next year.

There are certainly some odd things happening out there. To look at those two sites, it’s hard to make a call. Eben Frankewitz scored a dismal 10/100 on the WNTS approval ratings, but registered a 44.24 on Dialidol. That is a tremendous score, and despite such an execrable approval rating, the model regards him as the top vote getter. After that are Chase Likens and Adam Brock, who also got low approval, but substantial Dialidol numbers. Colton Dixon had a very low Dialidol score, but got relatively high approval ratings. Nevertheless, he is roughly half as likely to advance as Phillip Phillips.

For the women, the Dialidol numbers were small across the board. The highest vote getter was also the contestant with highest approval, Jessica Sanchez. Elise Testone, despite a small 0.12 Dialidol score, is regarded by the model as the next most likely to advance on the strength of her nearly universally praised performance (approval rating 84/100). To the chagrin of Worsters, Haley and Baylie are both at the bottom.

Finally, Brielle Von Hugel is predicted not to make it, despite having the highest Dialidol score, because of performance approval.

Now, note that these are probably going to be wrong. Hell, they might even be very wrong. It’s just a model, and weird things happen all the time on Idol. If picked at random, one should get 11/25 = 44% by just dumb luck.